The 2013 ARob Smash Life Banked Slalom

Usually when you say, hey, will you do an air out of the start gate in a race people ignore you. Eric was down though.

People in Montana are rugged. Dare I say gnarly, even. The ride steep shit, hard shit, rocky shit, and even traverse endlessly with ease, so they don’t think about the mountain the same way people from other places do. And when you let a crew from Montana build their dream Banked Slalom course, those that come from elsewhere better watch the fuck out. Now don’t read that as a complaint, or even an excuse, it’s just the only way I could begin to describe the course at the 2nd ARob Smash Life Banked slalom on January 5th in Bozeman, MT.

Stan negotiates the first few turns on his way to the BRONZE medal.

So about that course. This thing started slow with some big old banks, but quickly turned into a super g where the only option was to pin in. There was a last-minute gate addition placed in an attempt to slow people down, but it caught almost everyone by surprise. This was not a race for the feint of heart so when making predictions on the results, you can count out all the people who came from Baker, Oregon, Colorado or even as far away as Michigan. Park rats need not apply. Honestly, you can even count out Lucas Debari, who rolled up in the Go Boarding Subaru with Alex Yoder.

Jon Overson with that photo bomb and all the other guys who couldn’t beat Todd Kirby.

Really, the ones to watch when it came to results were the locals, or more specifically, Todd Kirby. He was referred to as the golden boy, the pace setter, and various other glowing names by his friends — who may or may not have been being sarcastic — and sure enough, when the seconds were counted, Todd topped Arob’s brother Jason Robinson by a solid hundredth of a second. To make everyone feel better though, even he fell on his second run.

This dude was STOKED.

The truth is though, the results don’t matter. The event — brain child of all of the late, great Aaron Robinson’s friends and family, and man-powered by Shane Stalling — is a benefit for the A Rob Plant a Seed foundation, with all the proceeds going to help more kids get out and board in ARob’s honor. It’s put on by homeys, and aside from scaring the shit out of us flatlanders, they did an amazing job making the day nothing but fun. Even the awards

Which in the end, is all that really matters. After all, ARob would have wanted it that way.

Thanks to Big Sky, all the event sponsors, the Robinson Family, Shane Stalling and everyone else who made this event possible. We’ll be back next year, when I will stay on my feet and be on top of the Yobeat cup!